Coin flip
“Every coin has two sides. Even if they share a back, the front is different from the other’s. They may share a hand, a space and even life, but each side is still different yet, all the same. So… Head or Tails?”
Two sets of eyes, gray and green, followed the small coin rising through the air. Then falling .
Down.
Down.
Down.
Heads…?
Barely flinching at the weight landing on her shoulder, Mayumi glanced over to the small fluffed calico house cat, "We're really here, Hisayo. We did it!"
The cat leaped down from the perch and almost in the same instant did the cat reappear as a human; Hisayo, "Not yet, Yumi, we have to pass this first."
"Yes, but we're still here! Together," Mayumi squealed, shaking the other by her shoulders.
Hisayo swatted her hands away, "But, we could not be here in less than ten minutes if we screw up."
"Such a downer," Mayumi pouted, "I'm just happy we're here trying!"
"Yeah, me too. See you on the other side," Hisayo raised her fist to Mayumi.
"Can't wait," Mayumi knocked her fist against Hisayo's.
They flew through the entrance exam. Both doing their best to use their quirks to their advantage. Hisayo bouncing between the robots, making them lock onto her little form and smash their fist into another bot. Mayumi stood still and blocked all hits she received with her left arm absorbing the force she was hit with, before smacking her right into another robot and smashing him to bits with the energy doubled.
Though, it did take a turn.
The bots seemed to smarten up and stop focusing on Hisayo. As if she didn't exist, leaving her without any more destruction points. As a small cat, she couldn't do more than run around.
Frustrated, she looked around frantically for an opportunity to get more points, but what caught her eye instead was a guy who'd just finished a bot, but seemed to not notice the one swinging towards him. Without fully thinking about what to do, Hisayo rushed forwards and threw her little cat body into his butt, knocking him off balance and making him fall flat onto his face.
"Hey! What the hell," He started, but paused, as the metal hand narrowly avoided them, "Uh, thanks."
Hisayo gave a short nod and continued trying to find ways to score points, all while Mayumi had begun to struggle as well. With every robot she hit, her arms were growing sore. With the force going in one arm and out the other, they were becoming bruised from the inside out. She wanted to take a break but she couldn’t. That wasn’t a hero.
Mayumi ducked behind a fallen bot and tried to calm the tingling in her arm from the overuse and searched the bumbling crowd for her feline friend. Finally her eyes landed on her, pushing a girl out of the way of a swinging bot, but landing herself in a flyswatter zone for another robot.
Mayumi picked herself up and sprinted to Hisayo, tucking the small cat behind her back and swinging her arms out to block the hit. She felt the force circle through her limbs, sliding up her left arm and crackling down her right, blowing the robot to bits.
“You dumbass ,” Hisayo scolded, now back to human, shoving Mayumi’s jacket off her arms. “I said not to overdo it!”
“Was I supposed to let you get splattered,” She yelled back, tears in her eyes from the pain, before adding just to be spiteful;” Jackass !”
Hisayo scoffed, and gently prodded at her bruising limb, “Your whole arm is shattered, stupid.”
“Yes, I can feel that,” Mayumi snapped through clenched teeth.
Suddenly the ground under them started to shake, knocking them off balance for a split second. Looking up, the girls realize what caused the mini earthquake. Another robot, except it was twenty times bigger than the rest.
“Hisayo… I think that’s the big guy we’re supposed to avoid,” Mayumi states, dodging a person fleeing the area.
“No duh, smartass,” Hisayo rolled her eyes, before noticing a boy running towards the giant robot.
Confused, she watched him run and jump at it, apparently going for a swing, before she realized why he was going after it. Another girl was trapped underneath some rubble thrown down from the robot's initial attack and it was going to crush her at this rate if someone didn’t stop it.
“Crap,” Hisayo pulled Mayumi up and pushed her ahead, trying to hurry her along, before stopping, “Go on ahead, I’ll meet you in a second!”
Mayumi turned to look at Hisayo incredulously, “Absolutely not, there’s no more points to get, let’s go!”
“There’s someone stuck! There’s no way in hell I'm leaving her,” Hisayo snapped, running towards the trapped girl.
“There’s already someone stopping the thing, let’s get out of here,” Mayumi tried, grabbing her tail to stop her.
“No!”
They stared at each other for a second, trying to break the other one’s will, before Mayumi gave up, “Fine, but I’m helping too!”
Hisayo glared at her, knowing she’d only hurt herself further, but she couldn’t argue away their little time left. So she just rushed to the girl, pulling Mayumi along, “Whatever. You push the top, I’ll push the bottom,” Hisayo ordered as they reached the stone.
“Got it. One, two… Three,” They shoved as hard as they could, but the building piece barely budged.
“You guys, it’s fine. Don’t worry about me, you need to get yourself points,” The stranger tried to send them away.
“Got enough of ‘em,” Mayumi grunted, pushing the stone harder.
“And you’re hurt,” Hisayo added, struggling.
“Hisayo, hit me,” Mayumi stated, giving up on the pushing idea.
“No way. I know what you’re thinking and it’s only going to hurt.”
She raised her left hand for Hisayo, “Oh, please, give me a better plan. It won’t need to be much, just enough to bounce it off.”
Hisayo looked back and forth between the robot and her before letting out a defeated groan and punched her open palm. With the force absorbed, Mayumi took a deep breath, ready for the pain and placed her right hand under the rubble and pressed forward to dispense the force to send it flying off of the girl.
“Thank you,” The girl sighed, sitting up.
Before they could respond they heard a smash from above. As the three look up, they see the boy falling back to the ground, his limbs clearly broken.
“Shit! From that distance he’s dead,” Hisayo stated.
“What can we do? We have to do something ,” Mayumi responded, looking at Hisayo, wide eyed.
She made an odd gesture trying to think clearly, before turning to Mayumi, easily making a decision, “Throw me.”
“Huh,” Mayumi blinked, “Absolutely not.”
“Throw me as a cat, it doesn’t have to be much, just enough to get me to him. I’ll turn back to a human and hold on to him,” Hisayo said. “That way his downwards force will be softened by my upwards one, and I can break his fall.”
“Aw, you do pay attention when I talk,” Mayumi teased.
“Please just throw me,” Hisayo rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, hit me,” Mayumi raised her hand again towards Hisayo.
Hisayo nodded, punching as hard as she could, she knew the harder she hit the less work Mayumi’s arm will have to do. Mayumi groaned, feeling the force roll through her arm to the broken one, she tried not to waste time lifting her injured arm with her uninjured one, palm upwards. Hisayo transformed, looking for the nod of approval before jumping up and letting Mayumi’s force push her skyward.
Hisayo hurled right into the plummeting boy, slowing his momentum, giving her just enough time to transform back and wrap her arms around him in an effort to protect him from the ground. This being the only time she doesn’t land on her feet.
Actually, she didn’t land at all. She briefly felt fingers swipe across her ribs before gravity stopped trying to kill them. Hisayo blinked opened her eyes, confused with the sudden change and locked eyes with the girl that they saved with her arm extended. She brought her finger tips together and they dropped to the ground, gravity returned.
Hisayo sighed, relaxing now that both the boy and girl were saved. However, the dead weight on her chest constricted her breathing, so she gently shoved the boy off of her before sitting up. He appeared to be alright, broken, but breathing. She moved to thank the girl, but stopped when she saw her throwing up.
“How are you going to yell at me for breaking a limb but decide ‘hey, let’s plummet towards the ground from fifty feet above’,” Mayumi shouted, pinching Hisayo’s ear.
“It wasn’t fifty feet, first of all. Second, I wasn’t going to end up breaking something from that distance,” She flicked her ear to get Mayumi’s hand off, “Besides, what was I supposed to do when someone’s going to die like that? It’s not like we had much of a chance to come up with a plan.”
Mayumi opened her mouth to rebuttal, but she couldn’t think of anything, so instead she settled for pouting and turned away. Hisayo knew she was trying to appear angrier than she really was and moved to comfort her, but a loud chime echoed through the air signaling the end of their exam.
Down
Tails…?
“Hisayo! Hisayo,” Mayumi’s voice carried through the open window and a moment later a body followed, scrambling through, “Hisayo, where are you!”
A loud yowl came from the bed, making Mayumi whirl around to find the angry yet drowsy kitty curled up on a pillow, “Don’t give me that face, I come bearing gifts!”
Hisayo eyed the two envelopes with a bold ‘U.A.’ printed on the front for a moment before turning human. Oh, that’s why she was being annoying. Those came quicker than expected, “You have got to stop using the tree to come into my room, it’s gonna break one of these days.”
“I’ll stop when it breaks. Do you want our results or not,” Mayumi waved the envelopes in the air.
“It’s your broken wrists, now hand it over,” Hisayo shrugged, reaching for hers.
“No! I wanna open yours, you open mine,” Mayumi declared, pulling back.
Hisayo rolled her eyes, “You know it’s illegal to open someone else’s mail.”
“But… but,” Mayumi pouted, pleading silently.
Hisayo held her hand out for her own letter and after a moment Mayumi relented, handing her the correct letter, “Open on three, yeah,” Mayumi asked.
“No, you idiot, just open it.”
“Rude, I’m just trying to make it special.”
“No, you’re stalling. Open yours first.”
“Now, you’re the one stalling, you go first!”
They argued back and forth for a solid minute before Hisayo ripped hers open. A small disc fell from the paper and onto the bed, a hologram video playing immediately.
“Oh my god, it’s All Might,” Mayumi exclaimed, Hisayo shushed her as All Might spoke, trying to calm her nerves.
He rambled on for a moment before displaying the test results, revealing that Hisayo only got twenty six villain points. She sighed and squeezed the small disc, clicking off the projection and tossed it into the trash. She expected that, her quirk wasn’t all that great. But she still felt disappointed… but a little relieved.
“Your turn,” Hisayo leaned back on her bed, waiting.
“Well, I don’t want to now,” Mayumi pouted, saddened by Hisayo’s results, “I couldn’t have done much better than you. I broke my arm halfway through.”
“Oh don’t be a wuss, open the letter. You get to see All Might again,” Hisayo tried, singing the last part in an attempt to persuade her. But Mayumi didn’t budge, even though she was the one that wanted this, “Look, just open it so we can be sad together and use our tears to convince mom to make us cupcakes.”
Mayumi sighed and gave in to the bargain. She tore open the envelope and dumped out the hologram disc. All Might babbled on, just as he did with Hisayo’s before stepping aside to show her points. And her thoughts were right.
Now Hisayo was more saddened now, it made sense for her to fall behind in the exam, but Mayumi? She had real potential. That wasn’t fair.
Mayumi chewed her lip as she saw she only got ten more points than the feline, “I want green icing on them…”
“Green icing is so gross, Yumi,” Hisayo laid back on her bed as Mayumi tossed her disc onto the desk, not bothering to shut it off.
“But green icing makes me happy and right now I’m very sad,” Mayumi dropped her weight onto the bed, bouncing Hisayo a bit.
“... Only graded by villain points,” Both girl’s lazily listened to the rest of All Might’s rant, “What kind of hero course would reject people who save others and do the right thing?”
“He talks so much,” Mayumi hummed.
“That’s why I turned mine off,” Hisayo pointed out.
“Rescue points,” Both girl’s lurched up at the new information, eyes widening at the sight of Mayumi’s results showing again, but with an added column, “Hashiri Mayumi; Sixty two points! Thirty six villain points and twenty six rescue points! Congratulations!”
“There… were rescue points,” Mayumi and Hisayo blinked at the now turned off hologram disc for a moment, “There were rescue points!”
The girls scrambled to retrieve Hisayo’s disc from the trash and pulled it out, clicking it on. Continuing from where it left off, All Might rambled again, leaving them anxious as he brought up the extra points.
“Mori Hisayo; Sixty two points! Twenty six villain points and thirty six rescue points! Welcome to Yuuei,” All Might boomed.
Hisayo passed.
Mayumi passed.
They were going to be heroes!
Down
Heads.
Hisayo watched as Mayumi got distracted yet again on their way to their classroom.
“Yumi, if you don’t hurry up I’m leaving your directionally challenged butt,” She stated, already annoyed by having to stop every five minutes.
However, she was ignored. With a huff, she transformed while heading in the direction their classroom is in. It was a bit faster as a cat, since she was able to avoid the random lost students and make her way without being noticed. Both girls had thankfully been placed in class 1-A, the classroom on the second floor of the building. With a sigh she walked into the room, jumping up on what her paper said was her desk.
“What’s a cat doing in here,” One of the many faces asked.
“Aw, it’s so cute,” A pink girl squealed.
“How’d it even get in,” A boy with a tail asked, moving to pet her.
Quickly she turned back into a human, and sat on her desk. She slapped his hand away and glared at the group fawning over her, “It’s rude to touch without asking,” She snapped at him.
“You’re human,” One of the girls in class stated.
“Really? I couldn’t tell,” Hisayo sassed.
“I’m sorry. We thought you were just a cat,” The boy with a tail apologized, “My name is Mashirao Ojiro.”
“Hisayo Mori,” She took his hand.
“So, we’re doing introductions now,” Another boy asked, grinning, “I’m Denki Kaminari.”
The rest of the group introduced themselves, but eventually, left Hisayo alone to sit on her desk and wait for Mayumi.
Speaking of, Mayumi grumbled, staring down at a little pamphlet map while rushing down the hall. She was absolutely awful with navigation of any kind, and the school was huge. She didn’t look up while she turned to her left, hoping to somewhat figure out her map a little more. That plan was hurled out the window as she collided with a thick wall.
“Son of a-,” Mayumi yelped as she fell to the ground.
“Ah, shoot, sorry! I shouldn’t be blocking the doorway like that,” Her wall apologized, reaching down to help her up. He was tall and lanky, with matching circle things on each elbow. Probably quirk related, she thought, taking his hand.
She smiled cheekily and let him pull her up, “It’s okay, I’m trying to find my way to class.”
“Oh, what class, I can try and point you in the right direction,” He offered.
“Uh…,” She scrambled to pull out her schedule, “1-A? The hero studies class. I know I’m the right building, I’m just stupid.”
“Actually, you seem to have found your way just fine,” He laughed, rubbing his neck, “Bienvenida a 1-A, Princesa.”
“Ooh, thank you, I would’ve walked right by,” She smiled, kindly, “I’m Hashiri Mayumi, quirk; Force absorption and multiplication.”
“Ah, always eager to help a lady in need,” He grinned back, “Sero Hanta, quirk; Tape. That doesn’t sound as cool as yours, heh.”
“Awe, no. Sometimes quirks with cool names are pretty boring,” She snickered, stepping around him, pivoting to still face him as they moved further into the room, “Really, you hit me, I hit you harder.”
“Yeah, I’m just… sticky,” He tried, before cringing, “That’s a horrible description.”
“It really is, we’ll work on it though. Can’t have you tell your future fans ‘you’re just sticky’. That would give off the wrong idea,” Mayumi laughed.
“You think I’ll have fans? Oh, hey, look,” Sero leaned down to pick up a cute little cat that was on their way out the door, “Hashiri, this is one of our classmates. Mori H-.”
“Hisayo,” Mayumi gasped, “You little shit! You ran off without me and let me get lost!”
Mayumi reached out for the cat, but she scrambled out of Sero’s arms quickly and bolted towards the other side of the room. Mayumi followed quickly and soon enough, both girls were barreling through the room. Mayumi chased Hisayo around, over desks and around people until Hisayo jumped up onto a high shelf easily fitting into the two foot wide space there.
“Uh uh, get down here you furry asshole,” Mayumi jumped, attempting to grab Hisayo but she only hissed and swatted at the shorter girl.
Hisayo switched back to her human form and barred her teeth at Mayumi’s hand, “It’s not my fault you weren’t keeping up, you were told to stay with me!”
“And you left without me!”
“You weren’t paying attention!”
“You know I get lost easily!
“Screw you and your directional issues!”
Behind them, the class watched their teacher walk into the room and then right back out…
Down
Tails.
Mayumi sat down sneakily dropping dirt in Hisayo’s tail, while Aizawa called the next student up for the lesson for the day. It wasn’t really a lesson, or at least it didn’t really seem like it. But to be completely honest, Mayumi wasn’t paying attention.
Hisayo on the other hand was. This teacher, on their very first day, forwent the entrance ceremony and orientation. ‘He’s ruining their first day of Hero School’ as Mayumi put it… for a quirk evaluation test?
What was he going to evaluate? What would happen if he deemed your quirk not strong enough? What happened when someone proved virtually useless in front of the entire class.
They’d be expelled. That’s what.
“Hisayo, you’re stressing over nothing. It’s just a physical,” Mayumi whispered, watching the dirt fall off of the swishing tail.
“Yeah, and he’s about to determine that I’m just a stupid cat,” Hisayo glared over her shoulder. “Stop dusting my tail.”
Mayumi rolled her eyes, “Okay? And? There’s an invisible girl somewhere around here. I think she moves light or something. You’re fine.”
“Yes, but he’s asking us to do basic tasks. How is my quirk going to help me with that,” Hisayo stood up as their classmates began to move away from them, setting up for their turn.
“You’ll figure it out, you always do. Giving up isn't very hero like,” Mayumi shrugged.
“Yeah, but I’m gonna come in last and you know what he said,” Hisayo sighed, “Also, ‘hero-like’ isn’t grammatically correct.”
“And I call bull. He seems like a prick of a teacher anyway,” Mayumi grumbled, ignoring Hisayo’s last comment, “You’ll do fine.”
Hisayo sighed, still extremely unconvinced. She was gonna be at the bottom of the class already and set for expulsion and it’s literally the first day. Unlike Mayumi, Hisayo didn’t do well on any of the physicals, and she knew that. She was last in the fifty yard dash, she looked idiodic trying the grip strength, the best she performed was for the long jump and the side steps tests. But that was easy, that was second nature as a feline, but still could’ve been much better.
And now throwing a ball? Yeah, that was gonna do awesome.
Her tail bristled harder as she watched each person throw. She never scored high on the regular physicals, and now she has to do a quirk one?
Perfect.
One by one everyone went. It was amusing to watch Uraraka’s ball just disappear into the atmosphere, while Mayumi just politely asked everyone to step up and highfive her really hard. She didn’t even really throw the ball, she just tossed it up and pushed it with her force, ‘throwing’ it just over five hundred meters.
Then Midoryia, the guy that broke himself half to death during the entrance exam got lectured about incapacitating himself and being a burden, which was valid. Hero’s were supposed to be the saving grace, not need saving… What was she going to do…
After a brief near death experience from Bakugo, it was Hisayo's turn.
Mayumi bumped Hisayo’s shoulder, “You ready?”
“Mayumi… Maybe the hero course isn’t for me. I only joined it because you wanted to be here,” Hisayo sighed, which was true.
Initially, Hisayo didn’t even want to be in any of the hero stuff. And when Mayumi started going on and on about being heroes together, Hisayo tried to get her to settle for a hero support duo, but she wasn’t having it, “Maybe, I’ll see if instead of kicking me out they can transfer me to the support classes.”
“Absolutely not,” Mayumi argued, “We are in this together, you said you wouldn’t let me back out and I’m not going to let you fail. So pull your head out of your ass and use it. Think outside the box or something!”
Hisayo sighed deeply, she was right. Hisayo changed her application last minute, just because Mayumi almost pulled hers out. For reasons unrelated to Hisayo wanting to be in support, but still.
Hisayo tried to think outside the box, but there wasn’t much room for creativity in these activities. But, she could figure it out.
“Mori, your turn,” Aizawa called her up.
Hisayo stepped up into the circle. She stared at the ball before switching into a cat. She walked her little body around the ball, touched it a little and then pounced on it. She couldn’t help but scratch and kick at it a little before she ended up on her back. She gave it a few test bunny kicks before full sending it as hard as she could.
Hisayo didn’t even watch the ball go, she just looked at the device, waiting for Aizawa to turn it around. And once he did, it revealed a whopping twenty eight meters.
Hisayo shrugged blandly, walking back to Mayumi, staying as a cat. She wasn’t going to let these stupid tests get the best of her.
In the end, she wasn’t last. And of course, “I told you he was full of it,” Aizawa was lying too.
Down
“Heads,” Mayumi declared.
“Tails,” Hisayo smirked.
Mayumi flipped the coin into the air, and they both watched it come down, flipping quickly. But as it came close enough to catch both girls tried to grab it and accidentally smacked it away. They both watched it hit the ground and roll away. They scrambled after it, but it came to a stop, as it got wedged into a groove of the floor.
“Woah! We've never got this before,” Mayumi cheered, crouching closer.
“Well, we could toss it again?”
“Nah, for some reason, it feels right that it landed this way.”
“Yeah, just a little.”